DesertBlog

DPC’s Fall Newsletter Now Online

The Fall issue of El Paisano is now available here. This month’s topics include our President’s message, in which he eagerly awaits the approach of another desert hiking season; a report on POWER, a new group promoting responsible renewable energy development and seeking to stop the Big Renewables desert land rush; a report by Pat Flanagan on her work creating a desert field trips curriculum for Imperial County students; the latest round of statewide efforts to regulate off-road vehicles; poetry by Ruth Nolan; and reports on advancement of three wilderness bills in Congress and wilderness monitoring efforts in the California desert.

Tied in with our efforts involving Big Solar and Big Wind in the California desert is this issue’s Educational Bulletin, which is a reprint of the article from Public Utilities Fortnightly that I reported on here in July. Entitled “PV vs. Solar Thermal,” the article covers the rapid advances in “thin-film” photovoltaic (PV) technology, which, almost overnight, have made it superior to concentrating solar power (CSP) technology. PV has always made more sense environmentally than large solar-trough power plants because it can be deployed on existing rooftops and parking structures located adjacent to the energy’s point of use. CSP plants, on the other hand, require scraping thousands of acres of habitat (or sometimes fallowed farmland), use large amounts of water if wet-cooled, sacrifice efficiency if dry-cooled, and often require long and wasteful transmission lines to get the power where it’s needed.

Thin-film PV in action in Geschen, Germany. Photo courtesy of First Solar.

Now, with prices for thin-film panels plummeting, PV suddenly makes more sense economically as well, and many experts believe California will be able to meet the existing 20% Renewables Portfolio Standard — and even a prospective 33% RPS — using this technology. Still, many renewable energy advocates, lobbying organizations, and agencies seem slow to accept the implications of these changes in the solar marketplace. We hope that reprinting this article will have an impact on the debate.